A Certain Magical Index Volume 19

Now with no video, the blindfolded boy’s words came through alone, in a quiet,
quavering tone.
“A he…hero…?”
“A villain.”
And then, on the heels of this, a reply came, sinister, as if to blacken out the place.
“A villainous piece of shit.”
There was a crunching sound.
It was the sound of the villain’s sole coming down on the cell phone the terrorists been
using to film, utterly crushing it.
And with that noise, the number-one enemy in Academy City began his battle.

Part 7

Level 5s were still only human.
#1 or not, it didn’t change the fact that he was a primate like the rest of them.
Whatever special powers he had, he would die if he couldn’t breathe air; he would starve
if he didn’t eat food. He had a normal lifespan, too. If you stabbed his internal organs, it
should kill him no problem.
Any human who shared these weaknesses could be killed.
No matter how monstrous, if they could still be classified as a human, it was doable.
Spark Signal was originally a special unit with the goal of aggressively eliminating any
who threatened to leak Academy City secrets. They had fought many powerful espers
during their term of service. That was why Spark Signal could appropriately respond to
espers who had strange, unfathomable powers. They could calmly size up the enemy and
formulate a means of defeating them.
This was what the masked former members of Spark Signal thought.
They honestly believed it was possible.
However.

42

Was Academy City’s #1 really human?
A whirling blast wind tore through the air.
The bullets caught in it seemed to scatter every which way, but then every single shot hit
one of the former Spark Signal terrorists.
Of course, they hadn’t executed this grand design only to wind up being shot like this.
Sensing a serious threat to their lives, they mobilized all the prowess and knowledge
they’d cultivated in order to stand up to the white-haired Level 5 with all their might,
hoping to find a way to escape.
One tried to hide behind an obstacle and fire a rifle.
Another tried to take a hostage and convince him to stop.
Yet another tried to use explosives to take out a pillar, aiming to crush him under so
many pounds of debris.
But all of it was pointless.
Not ineffective—it simply had no meaning.
The bullets didn’t work.
As soon as the rounds made contact with the monster’s skin, they bounced straight back
and punched right through the shooter.
The hostage didn’t work.
Right as the terrorist reached out to grab a child to use as a shield, his arm snapped in
an unnatural direction.
The explosives didn’t work.
Before he could hit the detonator, his fingers were crushed, along with the transmitter
they held, and then blown away.
(No …That isn’t all.)
One of the masked members of Spark Signal thought to himself.
The man, cold sweat thick on his face invisible to the outside, realized the true terror
welling up within him was due to something else.

43

(No.)
Academy City’s #1 Level 5, Accelerator, wasn’t arrogant.
He didn’t boast needlessly about his overwhelming power. When he saw the terrorists
dropping like flies, he didn’t slip up. If he had slipped up, they might have still had a
chance, but Accelerator wouldn’t allow even that slim possibility.
Sometimes using his ability and sometimes relying on his gun, he brandished the least
amount of power necessary along the shortest route to obtain the greatest results. This
was no longer a “man vs. man” battle, nor a match of “man vs. monster.” There was no
emotion involved in this violence.
As an analogy:
He was a heat-seeking missile precisely tracking a desperately fleeing jet from behind.
The argument wasn’t over who would win. It was whether or not the attack reached its
targets. And if it did, death undoubtedly awaited. The calamity Accelerator was causing
had already reached such a level.
(How much work do you think we put into this plan …?)
Using his ability, the Level 5somehow moved in a low arc through the air to attack the
former Spark Signal man’s teammates. He watched, dumbfounded, trying to make sense
of the chaos in his mind.
(Spark Signal’s abilities are on full display, plus we had several contingency plans
prepared in addition to the main one … And yet, and yet … He’s crushing us like a pile of
dead leaves … ?!)
And then it happened.
After another one of his teammates went down, their consciousness draining along with
their freshly spilled blood, the monster’s head swiveled to look at him.
(What are we supposed to do … ?)
The former Spark Signal terrorist locked gazes with those red eyes.
They were almost like a laser sight.
(What are we supposed to—?!)
There was no winning or losing.

44

He’d been locked onto—and the attack was incoming.
The time required had been just three hundred seconds.
Then, silence and peace visited the world’s largest particle accelerator, the Hula Hoop,
once more.

Part 8

Now the boy knew.
He couldn’t see what was going on through the blindfold. But the electricity in the air
had gone away. The very world of despair those terrorists had created was gone.
He heard a gasp from nearby.
It was probably one of his classmates or one of the adults with them.
He couldn’t sense any relief in their sighs. Maybe the way the situation was resolved had
been too violent.
The boy frantically worked his bound hands. Just when he thought he was about to tear
his skin on the rope, the loop suddenly fell off one of his hands. He moved his trembling
arm and took the blindfold off his face.
The first light he’d seen in some time stunned him at first.
The boy put a hand up to block the fluorescent white light, squinted, and then took a
look around. He had to be somewhere around here. Thinking that, the boy’s head
stopped in a certain direction.
Along the wall.
Terrorists, beaten and battered but still barely breathing, lay there. And facing those
terrorists was a person with white hair and a crutch. He was facing away from the boy. It
wasn’t visible what sort of expression this person was making.
…That was the feeling the boy got.
But maybe that wasn’t the reality.
After all, a moment later, the white-haired person had disappeared into thin air.
Without any announcement, as though two frames of film had been cut together wrong,
the white-haired person was no longer anywhere to be found.

45

The boy stared at the empty space he’d occupied for some time.
"—A villainous piece of shit."
He thought about who that person could be. The boy had been hoping for a hero, but all
he had instead was that unflinching answer.

Part 9

“Nice job out there. Looks like you have a pretty heroic streak, huh?”
When Musujime Awaki spoke to him, Accelerator very nearly pulled the trigger on her.
He had disappeared so suddenly, of course, because he’d retreated using her Move Point.
Now that he’d eliminated Spark Signal, the only things to be done were for the Hula
Hoop employees to unlock the doors and elevators and quickly release the children onto
the surface. There was no more need for a villain.
Accelerator took a look around.
They were in the basement of the air force building they’d originally arrived at before his
assault. On the spacious floor, polished to a shine like a high-class department store,
stood not only Musujime, but also Tsuchimikado and Unabara.
“One thing is bugging me,” said Accelerator. “It’s about what those shithead terrorists
were demanding from the higher-ups.”
Tsuchimikado’s eyebrow arched with a twitch. “…I decided to look into it while you were
storming the castle, but their guard is even tighter than I expected. All we know is that it
must be something the higher-ups really aren’t happy about—”
“I don’t want to hear about your incompetence. Shut up and listen to me, you half-wit,”
spat Accelerator, getting back on topic. “While I was turning those assholes down there
into meatballs, I heard a few of their screechings. I think they were crying because they
wouldn’t be able to achieve their goal at this rate.”
“…Are you saying they leaked what their demands were as well?” prompted Unabara.
Accelerator was silent for a moment.
Eventually, he answered.
“…Dragon.”

46

The simple six-letter word filled the air with tension.
Even in the hidden nanodevice network Underline, that information was so secret only
its name existed. Even Accelerator and the others, who lived in the heart of darkness,
didn’t know what it was—but perhaps the act of searching for it would be the link they
needed to oppose the leadership of the all-powerful Academy City. The term had enough
weight and meaning behind it to warrant such speculation.
Accelerator, Tsuchimikado Motoharu, Musujime Awaki, Unabara Mitsuki.
They had formed a temporary allied front, each searching for what Dragon was, each for
their own reasons.
However—
Apparently, they weren’t the only ones chasing Dragon.
Then, as if offering proof, Accelerator said, “‘Disclose information on Dragon at
once.’…Apparently, that was the only thing those shithead terrorists were demanding.
Meaning the higher-ups managed to trick us into destroying a clue without knowing it.”

Between the Lines 1

Academy City’s District 1 was lined with administrative and judicial facilities and it did
not have the sense of livelihood that other, more normal districts had. It had almost no
residences or restaurants. In exchange for gathering together all of the functions needed
for smoothly operating such a large city, only the bare minimum of functionality for
people to live there was prepared. The extremely mechanical cityscape helped reinforce
that image of the district.
A single terribly unique building was mixed in with the mostly consistent cityscape of
District 1.
It was an office of the board of directors.
Since it took up an entire skyscraper, it went beyond the level of what one would
normally think an “office” was. Since its maintenance was paid for entirely with tax
money, it may have been more accurate to call it an “official residence”. At any rate, the
luxurious building had actually only been prepared for the sole use of one of those
twelve influential people within Academy City.
His name was Thomas Platinumburg.

47

The master of that building was in a splendid and spacious room that was reminiscent of
the audience chambers seen in RPG castles. The room took up an entire floor of the
building and was used as a reception room. He had no subordinates around. Given his
position, it would not have been surprising for him to have had countless guards, but he
had sent everyone else away from that large room. He was meeting a guest in his role as
a member of the board of directors.
His guest was a mercenary sniper he had personally invited from outside the city.
She was a tall woman. She had white skin and long blonde hair. She possessed a beauty
that would have looked more fitting shining under a spotlight than on a dirty battlefield.
However, she had a bag large enough to fit an entire person into lying at her feet as she
sat on a sofa. The bag most likely contained her stock in trade.
She was a fairly famous woman in her business.
It wasn’t quite clear if being famous was a good thing in her business.
“How is Sunazara Chimitsu-san doing, Stephanie Gorgeouspalace-san?”
Thomas spoke two people’s names.
Stephanie was the name of the sniper and Sunazara was the name of the man who she
looked up to as a mentor.
She obediently nodded in response to Thomas’s question.
“His progress is going well. He has not regained consciousness yet, though. Really, it is
all thanks to the fact that you lent us an Academy City life support system. If you had not,
he would have been gone already.”
“Oh, think nothing of it. It was painful enough knowing that your comrade was injured
at the hands of someone from Academy City due to an unfortunate turn of events.”
The five underground organizations of Group, Item, Block, Member, and School had
once fought leading to the destruction of a few of them. Sunazara Chimitsu had been
hired by one of them and had been defeated by the member of a different one.
Explosives had blown the entire building away and he had been injured to the point that
he still had not regained consciousness.
When Thomas Platinumburg had received that information, he had secretly recovered
the man and sent him, life support system equipped bed and all, outside of the city to
Stephanie.
Of course, he had not done it out of good will.

48

He had done it to have her feel obligated to help him so he could have the advantage in
some business he had to carry out.
“So who is the target you wish me to take out?”
“I have documents prepared elsewhere, but I am sure you will recognize the name. He is
Academy City’s #1 Level 5 known as Accelerator.”
That request was not on behalf of the leading members of Academy City.
It was an exceedingly personal request.
On September 30, Accelerator had fought the Hound Dog unit led by Kihara Amata and
the boy had attacked Thomas Platinumburg’s residence in order to acquire information.
In that attack, he had shot Thomas with a shotgun. Thomas’s current action was
motivated by revenge.
While it was pure revenge on the emotional side, it would also serve to get any of his
subordinates who were growing lax in their duties to shape up.
“Can you do it?”
“If you tell me to, then yes.”
He had expected that response. He had made sure his subordinates were not around for
the negotiation as a whole, but mostly because he had prepared a trump card.
“When sniping the target, you need not worry about any damages to the surrounding
area. I will cover for anyone or anything that gets damaged in the process. …So if you
were to put a bullet in the former Item member Kinuhata Saiai who put Sunazara-san in
his current state, there would be no real problem.”
“Oh, I see. And you have already been so helpful in Sunazara-san’s case. Academy City’s
technology truly is wonderful. That medical equipment truly is something you would
never see anywhere else.”
“Ha ha. Not all of the city’s technology is good, but I am quite proud of the parts that can
be used for peace.”
“Indeed. It is amazing how you were able to put a tiny transmitter in Sunazara-san’s
body. It seems to work slightly differently from a nanodevice, but you truly cannot find
devices that small implanted inside someone’s body elsewhere.”
Immediately afterwards, a chill permeated every inch of that huge room. No, the air had
not actually changed. That was simply how it felt through the filter of Thomas
Platinumburg’s fear.

49

“Please wait,” Thomas said holding out a hand. “You have no idea how important the
information that could be gained from the technology used in that life support system is.
It is targeted for use outside the city meaning it is at a lower grade, but even so it has
incredibly valuable information on Academy City technology inside it. We wanted to
send Sunazara Chimitsu-san quickly but safely to you. However, having the
technological information in the system would be a major problem. That is what the
device is for. If we had not put that inside him, we could not have sent him to you so
quickly.”
“Oh, I see.”
What Thomas Platinumburg did not realize at that time was something he had no real
reason to have noticed, but it was still a fatal oversight.
Stephanie Gorgeouspalace did not usually speak so politely.
She was purposefully altering her speech patterns in order to force down her
overflowing emotions.
“So the fact that the grain of rice-sized transmitter also had a mechanism inside it that
sends out a special stimulus that allows four of Sunazara-san’s organs to be stopped
with a single signal…is merely a safety measure?”
Drops of cold sweat started dripping from Thomas’s body.
But it was too late.
The next thing he knew, Stephanie’s form on the sofa blurred from high speed
movement and was suddenly standing right in front of Thomas. Her right hand was
stretched out, directly stabbing a quill into his stomach.
Thomas did not even feel the pain of his skin and flesh being torn.
The pain was the least of his worries.
“You can have this back.”
As she pulled out the quill, Stephanie held a small radio in her hand. Thomas assumed
that she had embedded something in the wound and that the radio’s frequency was set
to send a signal to that something. This thought brought such clear fear of death that his
primitive sense of pain went completely numb.
“You made a mistake in trying to add in your little trick. If you had just handed
Sunazara-san over and then come to me with your request, I would have readily acted as
your pawn.”
“…Wait…”

50

Thomas Platinumburg trembled as he stared at Stephanie…or more accurately, the
thumb held up against the radio. He threw off the façade of polite speech and made his
final piece of negotiation in a cracking voice.
“…If you…cause trouble here, you won’t be able to carry out your revenge… If you…help
me…you can easily get revenge for Sunazara…”
“Oh, I forgot to tell you,” Stephanie responded without seeming to think about it at all.
She seemed to be bringing the conversation as a whole to a close.
“The target of my revenge is everyone in Academy City.”
Immediately afterwards, Stephanie unhesitatingly hit the switch on the radio.
The transmitter embedded in Thomas’s wound quickly responded by creating a special
electrical stimulus. The man’s organs were functioning normally, but this quickly
stopped four of them from functioning and reliably ended his life.
He screamed in his death agony.
Stephanie did not even look in the direction of the body that had fallen to the floor
motionless as she put the radio in her pocket with a disinterested look on her face.
She heard footsteps approaching.
Most likely, the guards who wore black suits had heard their master’s scream. Her
estimate based on the guard density she had seen on her way to the reception room was
that there were about two hundred of them.
However, Stephanie’s face did not grow even slightly cloudy. She opened the fastener on
the giant bag at her feet while humming and pulled out her stock in trade that was
stored inside.
It was not a sniper rifle.
It was a light machine shotgun.
It was a special gun based on the type of rapid-fire machine gun that could be carried
around but was usually used while fixed on a tripod. It had been modified so that it only
used shotgun ammunition. When fired at close range, the light machine shotgun held
enough destructive power that it could transform an armored vehicle into what looked
like a crushed can. It was Stephanie’s personal custom gun.
The reason a supposed sniper like Stephanie had taken out such a dangerous weapon
was quite simple.

51

“Sunazara-san always shot small and compact weapons from a distance.”
Unlike when she spoke with Thomas, Stephanie Gorgeouspalace’s speech patterns
returned to normal with a bit of yearning mixed in as she muttered to herself.
“But it seems a hell of a lot easier to just get up close and fire like crazy!”
The large door to the room opened wide.
At the same instant, a disastrous storm spread out from the light machine shotgun.
Her revenge began.

52

CHAPTER 2

A Simple Yet Complex Problem.
V.S._Calamity.

Part 1

“I see.”
The voice of Shiokishi, a member of the board of directors, filled the RV.
However, that leader of the city was not actually in the RV with Accelerator and the
others.
He was speaking from a live video being displayed on the screen.
“Well, what matters most is that the Hula Hoop incident was resolved without any
major damage done. …In fact, I saw the report on the battle, and your specs are as
amazing as ever.”
For once, Accelerator and the other three agreed on something. However, they did not
want to hear that from him of all people.
It was not a gentle old man that would look good in a tuxedo being displayed on the
screen.
Well, that might have been what he actually looked like, but that wasn’t what one saw on
the screen.
It was a powered suit.
A powered suit was a collection of highly elastic wires and powerful motors that aided in
movement with thick armor covering it. The word “weapon” fit it better than the word
“armor”. The short and stout mecha creaked as it sat in an elegant chair.
“Does it bother you?” said Shiokishi in a light voice, although it was unclear which of the
four he was speaking to.

53

He did not seem even remotely uncomfortable about having them look at him so oddly.
“If you think about it rationally, it makes sense. This world is overflowing with things
that will kill a human. People often say that it will never happen to them or that no one
has any reason to hold a grudge against them…but that’s completely ridiculous. Whether
there is some simple reason or not, when people die, they die. And the danger is even
greater in a position like mine. If I want to escape any sudden misfortune, I believe I
must always be on my guard.”
Shiokishi used the back of his large hand to tap the amber-colored table in front of him.
“That is the main reason that I have been so rude as to do this over a video feed instead
of meeting you directly. This way, you do not have to know where I am.”
“What are you so fucking afraid of? You’re probably in some dome-shaped facility that’s
on the level of a nuclear shelter.”
“And you think that is enough for me to rest easy? Far from it. This is Academy City.
Let’s see, it’s Musujime-kun, right? For people with abilities like hers, the thickness of
the walls means nothing. I’m ‘so fucking afraid’ of having a bomb thrown into this room
this very instant.”
“…Despite both of you being on the board of directors, you give quite a different
impression from Oyafune Monaka,” said Unabara Mitsuki.
He had likely been in contact with her during the Hula Hoop incident.
In contrast to Shiokishi, Oyafune started with trusting others and continued on with
harmony and cooperation, making her a rare type among the collection of black-hearted
influential people who were known as the board of directors.
“No, Oyafune-kun has her own type of defense,” said Shiokishi. “Much like with the
JSDF, she shows off the fact that she is safe and has no ability to invade which keeps
others from having a pretext on which to attack. In its own way, that is a very high-level
skill. I certainly couldn’t emulate it. …Although, she used to be quite skilled at the art of
conversation. I guess her daughter had a major effect on her...”
Shiokishi wrapped his arms around the short body of the powered suit.
“But this still leaves me a little uneasy. If I could, I would feel safer using cyborg
technology to remake my body itself instead of wearing something, but it seems there
are still various issues with that. I believe the delicate equipment has a lifespan of five
years or thereabouts and having to undergo major surgery to switch out the artificial
organs every five years is too heavy a burden. Having the individual artificial organs
kept compact in a single life support system built into the powered suit lightens that
burden and while a cyborg cannot overcome the barrier of the physical body’s capacity,

54

the devices in a powered suit can be easily replaced. I admit that it’s actually just an
advanced version of a hospital bed or handheld oxygen tank, but for me, it’s—”
“Shiokishi-san,” said Tsuchimikado cutting him off because he knew that idiots would
go on forever when they got fixated on certain subjects. “I’m sure you did not go out of
your way to contact us just to allow us to submit our battle reports. It would have been
faster to do that via the ‘voice on the phone’.”
“You have probably vaguely picked up on it, but the agent that commands you four is
otherwise occupied. There is more than one incident going on in Academy City right
now. …I thought it would be taken care of already, but I never expected for that youth
who sits at the same table to be done in.”
“…”
“You don’t need to be suspicious. You don’t need to feel uneasy about the information
that isn’t disclosed to you, because it is all connected. If you do what you must do, you
will gather all the information before long.”
At that point, the camera shook. Shiokishi called for some people he referred to as
“Sugitani-kun” and “Minobe-kun” and then someone from outside the view of the
camera grabbed the camera and moved it back to its proper position.
“Anyway, I am here to ask you to carry out your next job.”
“…Did something else happen so soon?” Tsuchimikado asked being reminded of the
incident that had caused fights to the death to break out between the five organizations
known as Group, School, Member, Item, and Block.
But Shiokishi shook the helmet of his powered suit back and forth.
“It is nothing that serious. Basically, I want you to take out some leftovers. It seems
some comrades of the former Spark Signal members that attacked the Hula Hoop are
still hiding within Academy City. If we do nothing about them, they could easily put
together some kind of second plan.”
There were comrades of the people who had wanted information on Dragon from the
very depths of Academy City.
“I will send you data on the details of your target, but I think this will be much simpler
than with Hula Hoop. …At the very least, you should be able to take them out with no
preparation. Since you managed to get through that job before, I’m sure you can easily
manage this.”
Shiokishi then started to wrap up the conversation, but Accelerator suddenly spoke.

55

“…Does the term ‘Dragon’ sound familiar to you?”
“It’s a fairly famous word. I think it’s used proudly in video game titles a lot.”
“Tch,” he clicked his tongue.
If Shiokishi had said he didn’t know, he could have pressed further, but he had lost the
opportunity. If he continued on, Shiokishi would just continue evading the question.
Whether he knew what Accelerator was after or not, Shiokishi tapped his thick metal
palms together and then ended the discussion.
“You all are students, so finish up this boring work and get back to your own lives.”

Part 2

The party to celebrate Takitsubo Rikou’s release from the hospital was to be held that
night.
Hamazura Shiage and Kinuhata Saiai had been forced to make the preparations for that
party in a hurry, so they ended up buying various joke goods at a shopping area in
District 7.
“…Hey, wait a second. How did we end up in a movie theater and why are we the only
ones in the theater two minutes before the movie starts?”
“This place specializes in short films, so we’re super okay. They show ten-minute-long
films with five-minute breaks in between. By my calculations, we can watch two of them
and still have super enough time to meet up with Takitsubo-san.”
“That doesn’t explain why we’re the only two here.”
“Shut up. I actually need to use the bathroom and am super holding it in, so don’t talk to
me, Hamazura.”
“You want to see it that much?” Hamazura muttered as his shoulders drooped.
Kinuhata’s hobby was watching movies, but she seemed to have no interest in major
Hollywood hits. She only cared about the ones that were referred to as B or C movies.
“Gwah, this is no good. This film only just started showing, but it has a super shitty feel
to it only two minutes in…”

56

“This is always how it is when you bring me along!! You’re the one that dragged me in
here!!”
Since they were the only two in the theater, Hamazura didn’t hold back as he yelled at
her.
However, Kinuhata shook her head with a grave look on her face, completely ignoring
Hamazura.
“No, this super isn’t it. I don’t want to see this kind of super self-aware C movie where
they decided to make a completely ridiculous C movie for fun. I want to super see
something made to super seriously compete with Hollywood, but naturally turned into a
C movie due to various circumstances.”
“I see. Well, I can accept that the heroine is wearing a medieval-looking dress despite
that fact that the movie takes place in the near future on the grounds that that’s simply
the world it takes place in, but I can’t help being bothered by the fact that everyone is
sweating as if it were filmed in summer even though the story takes place in the middle
of winter.”
“Hamazura, look at the left edge of the screen. You can super see what looks like
smokestack from a thermal power station on the opposite shore over there.”
“Seriously? That SF atmosphere they worked so hard to build up is completely gone! I’ve
heard of airplanes flying by in the middle of a shot, but a preliminary inspection would
make it obvious there was a building there!!”
Even Hamazura, who wasn’t too picky about movies, covered his face with his hands
over that one. Meanwhile, Kinuhata started fidgeting and rubbing her thighs together.
“…I can’t do it. I’ve super lost the willpower needed to stay with this horrible film. I’m
gonna go to the bathroom. Hopefully, the next short film will be super worth it.”
“Eh? You’re gonna leave this movie to me!?” said Hamazura, but Kinuhata had already
left the theater.
He had little choice, so Hamazura watched the strategy meeting just before the climax
being shown onscreen. He was watching it more to kill some time than to enjoy the film.
(…Huh? What’s with that map on the wall behind her there?)
Hamazura’s eyes had started to resemble those of a dead fish, but he suddenly started to
pay attention again.
(…That’s a map of the craters and mountain ranges on Mars. Why isn’t it a normal world
map? If they went out of their way to get a map like that, then…Waaahhhh!?)

57

His eyes widened like he had been hit by an electric shock.
(This story takes place in the middle of winter, but not in the middle of Earth’s winter!!
They were making us think that, but it was actually a story about a modern “what if”
world where Mars was developed in an odd way!! In that case, the cast being so hot can
be explained as a side effect of the terraforming. And that smokestack wasn’t a mistake,
it was…Gwahh!! They got me!!)
And the latter five minutes of the story were a sight to behold. The dullness of the first
half had been intentional on the part of the director. That dullness had made the second
half shine even brighter. It was like a glass of cold water after an exhausting marathon.
If that trick had been used in a one-hundred-minute movie, the viewers would have
given up, but this was a short film. After the first five minutes, the viewers would tend to
reluctantly watch the rest of it even if the beginning was incredibly boring, so they would
make it to the second half. That was how calculated that film had been.
(Wow! Wow!! Wooowww!!!!! What is this? This isn’t a C film. This was definitely made
with the intention of defeating Hollywood!!! What the hell? This was only a ten-minute
film, right? This was nothing like the world from some regular, everyday trilogy!! They
made this with such depth but also made it so you couldn’t tell!)
“Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!” Hamazura Shiage started laughing without realizing it. He was
seriously thinking of kissing Kinuhata Saiai on the back of the leg.
(I see, I see. So this is why seeing low-budget short films made by new directors can be
worthwhile.)
Hamazura simply could not keep from smiling at the experience he had just had.
But then a chill ran down his back.
He felt someone’s gaze.
He timidly turned around and found the girl who loved movies more than anyone else
who had returned from the bathroom.
Her trembling face could be seen peering in through the gap in the slightly opened door.
Her expression seemed to be saying, “Nooo!! How could I have missed such an
interesting film!?”

♦
After the film was over, Hamazura was walking along next to Kinuhata.

58

(I see. So the director is called Beverly Seethrough. I need to keep an eye on her stuff…)
Kinuhata was walking along limply as if she had no strength left. She was surrounded by
a dark thundercloud-like aura and had an expression as if she felt the world was ending.
“Kinuhata. C’mon, Kinuhata, it’s not so bad. You still win out overall. I never would have
come across that film without you. Your antenna that allows you to search out a film like
that among the countless films out there is the real deal.”
“…I can’t believe this super Hamazura is feeling sorry for me. With C movies, it’s all
about luck. This could be a sign that my sense is starting to become super distorted…”
They exited the movie theater as Kinuhata muttered to herself.
They were on their way back to the hospital to meet up with Takitsubo now that they
had killed some time, but then Kinuhata’s cell phone started to ring.
For a short time, Kinuhata did not respond and continued looking on with her dead
looking eyes, but she finally answered it with oddly slow movements.
After a short conversation, Kinuhata hung up and looked towards Hamazura.
“Hamazura, go on ahead and super pick up Takitsubo-san. You super know the place,
right? If you super take her over to the private salon in District 3, it would be a super
help.”
“Ahn?”
“I have a job. The new team is finally being started, so we have to super gather together
and then kill all of the former Spark Signal terrorists who are super targeting Academy
City.”

Part 3

“…I thought you had gone off to some secret meeting point.”
“…I went off to the secret meeting point and got sick of it in five minutes, so I super
came back.”
Hamazura and Kinuhata looked at each other as they had this exchange.

59

Kinuhata had returned before Hamazura had even made it to the hospital. Hamazura
started to wonder if there was a transmitter hidden on him somewhere, but it didn’t
seem so.
It was past the time all students were supposed to have left school and the last train and
last bus had already left, so they were walking to the hospital.
“Hey, so what happened? Weren’t you supposed to go fight some terrorists with this new
team?”
“I was, but something happened.”
Kinuhata then started telling him what had happened.

♦
Kinuhata Saiai had gone to a dimly lit underground area and looked around at the
various people waiting there. She had frowned and a well-timed cell phone call had
come.
“Thanks for coming, everyone. Item, School, Block, and Member were destroyed a while
back. It’s always like that with you people.☆ Anyway, this new team was created from
the leftovers, so please get along with your comrades who you tried to kill before!”

♦
“Hey, wait a second! I doubt that!! What kind of memory is that to start with!?”
“I thought it was a joke at first too, but it seems she was super serious. I super couldn’t
stand it, so I ran off. Oh, right. The Measure Heart girl in the dress asked me to say hi to
you, Hamazura.”
“…Damn it, I have nothing but bad memories of her,” Hamazura said dejectedly, but
then he suddenly raised his head. “But wait. Was that really okay? Those people on the
phone have a lot of power, right? Will you be okay having ignored one of their orders?”
“It’s super not okay. That’s why I want a bit of help, Hamazura. If I super carry out my
assignment before I’m brought back to that new team, they can’t complain.”
“Hah?” said the boy in shock, but Kinuhata continued on readily.
“I want you to super steal a car like normal and help me out. We’ll use it to chase after
the former Spark Signal members who were with the group that attacked the Hula Hoop
and then super finish them off. We can’t leave Takitsubo-san waiting too long, so let’s
finish this off super quickly.”

60

“Wait just a damn second. Weren’t you just saying that I didn’t have to obey Item
anymore? What happened to the Hamazura Shiage who would wash his hands of all that
dirty business and support his lovely Takitsubo-chan?”
“Then you can just super leave me be and go with Takitsubo-san to the private salon.
She’ll likely be worried about me when I super don’t show up, but you can just super
enjoy yourself on your own.”
“Fuck!! This is her party and you’re just going to leave!?”
“If you don’t like it, then super hurry up and get us a car already. Let’s super kill those
former Spark Signal bastards and then get to the party, okay? Okay, Hamazura, okay?”
At the end, she started using a sweet, coaxing voice and Hamazura ended up clicking his
tongue and sticking his hand in his pocket while half in tears. He pulled out the wire-like
tools he used to unlock cars.
While glancing over at Kinuhata who was calling Takitsubo to tell her to head to the
private salon in District 3 ahead of them, Hamazura easily opened the door of a family
car parked on the street.
“You really are the type that relies on the people you know, aren’t you?”
“Did you super say something, Subordinate Hamazura?”

Part 4

The RV Accelerator, Tsuchimikado Motoharu, Musujime Awaki, and Unabara Mitsuki
were riding in headed to District 3 where celebrities tended to gather.
Tsuchimikado displayed the order data Shiokishi had sent over on the large screen.
“There are twenty of them. It seems they have sub-machine guns and grenades prepared
for that many, but…well, Shiokishi was right about this being an easy job. It seems their
job was mainly to provide support for the main group.”
“Sure, killing them will be easy,” said Accelerator while sitting on a cot and glaring at
Tsuchimikado. “But are we just going to do what those fuckers on the board of directors
say? If we play this right, we might be able to press them for some information on
Dragon.”

61

“So are you saying we join the former Spark Signal terrorists, the people who occupied
the Hula Hoop and used a child as a hostage for their negotiations?”
“…”
“In our position, we of course do need to search for information on Dragon, but we can’t
do it the wrong way. Those former Spark Signal members are just a bunch of terrible
bastards. If nothing is done about them, they could easily occupy some other building
and take more hostages. …And if you truly want to press for information on the mystery
of Dragon by dragging complete strangers into the mix, then the four of us will have to
split.”
“Tch,” said Accelerator clicking his tongue disinterestedly.
He was a truly fearsome Level 5 who had even been dropped from a bomber as a
strategic weapon, but he truly hated causing damage to civilians (or more accurately, to
the peaceful world in which a certain little girl lived).
Now that Accelerator had been silenced, Musujime opened her mouth.
“Where are these remnants of the former Spark Signal members hiding?”
“They’re moving through an underground mall directly below a train station. The place
has already closed, so there aren’t any other people there. Since they’re going out of their
way to head through there, it must not be too much trouble for them to break through
the security.”
Most shopping districts stayed open late into the night, but the ones in the same facility
as a train station were different. When the last train left, the underground mall below it
would close too.
Tsuchimikado operated a remote control and a map of the underground mall appeared
on the screen.
“They most likely know that the main force at the Hula Hoop was defeated. It seems
they are moving through the underground mall to get to a vehicle they have parked
elsewhere to move to yet another location. It isn’t clear if they are purely attempting to
flee or if they are switching to a secondary plan that uses an even more destructive
weapon.”
“So where is their getaway vehicle located?” asked Unabara, but Tsuchimikado merely
pointed towards the wall of the RV.
“There.”

62

“…What?”
“I instructed the driver to circle around ahead of them. If we destroy the vehicle and
have someone wait for them, we can prevent things from going the way the former
Spark Signal members want it to. …Of course, it won’t end there. We will leave an
anchor here and the other three will perform a sweep of the underground mall. If we use
some pinpoint shooting with Musujime’s Move Point and then have Unabara and me
take them out while they’re confused, this will be over before you know it.”
Accelerator frowned upon hearing that.
A faint smile appeared on Tsuchimikado’s face when he saw the #1 glaring at him. He
lightly tapped his own neck and spoke.
“With the Depart and Hula Hoop battles back-to-back like that, you need to conserve
your electrode’s battery.”
“Tch.”
He had no real reason to obey him, but he had no real reason to help them either.
Accelerator decided that if those idiots were going to take care of the odd jobs on their
own, he would just let them.
At that point, the RV stopped moving.
Tsuchimikado reached his hand out towards the back door that led outside.
“C’mon, let’s go. Time for a regular everyday fight to the death.”

Part 5

From the standpoint of one’s wallet, the underground mall in District 3 was a place that
required some courage to step into.
The area the former Spark Signal members were heading through was already closed, so
there were no other people there. They were more specifically in an area that had many
different sports brands of clothing. They had an entire eras worth of uniforms from a
world famous soccer league lined up. People who understood that type of thing could
accept how much they cost, but those who did not understand would be at a loss as to
why anyone would pay that much. The place was filled with items that had that sort of
value.

63

“(…Oh, there they are. Hm, they have light weight low recoil submachine guns that can
be used with one hand, but they’ve ruined them by putting heavy grenade launchers on
them. This might be even easier than expected.)”
“(…Have they not thought about how dangerous it is to use grenades in an enclosed
space?)”
While peering around the corner of a corridor, Tsuchimikado and Unabara spoke to
each other.
They used a cell phone to call Musujime who was waiting a little ways away.
“The targets have been spotted at Point BBE. Can you confirm?”
“I want to just go ahead and kill them. Could you give me the signal?”
“We’ll begin on the count of five. Start with the outer edges.”
Tsuchimikado hung up the phone and gripped his handgun with both hands.
The twenty former Spark Signal terrorists headed towards them through the darkness.
At exactly five seconds after he had hung up, a corkscrew pierced the shoulder of one of
the armed members making almost no noise.
Musujime Awaki’s Move Point made no noise in and of itself. The slight sound that had
been made was most likely the sound of the flesh around the wound being spread out by
the corkscrew appearing having ignored the third dimension.
A scream resounded through the area.
However, the former Spark Signal group did not realize they were being attacked at first.
A second, a third, and then a fourth corkscrew attacked them.
People on the outer edges of the group simultaneously fell to the ground and writhed
around. The former Spark Signal group finally figured out what was going on and stood
stock still as they were unsure which direction to run in since people on all sides of them
had been hit.
That confused motionlessness lasted only two or three seconds, but Tsuchimikado did
not overlook it.
“Let’s go,” he said quietly to Unabara and held his gun around the corner.

64

He unhesitatingly pulled the trigger.
Unlike before, a clear gunshot and muzzle flash was created and more of the terrorists
collapsed. Perhaps because this was not a mysterious attack and they were able to
comprehend what had happened, the remaining targets returned fire with their
submachine guns in Tsuchimikado’s direction as they searched for something to hide
behind.
Tsuchimikado and Unabara fired from the front and Musujime used her Move Point
from a different direction, so the former Spark Signal members continued to go down.
In no time at all, half of them had been taken out.
“(…Oh, shit. A grenade!!)”
Tsuchimikado saw one of them reaching a finger towards the other trigger near the
trigger to the submachine gun, so he concentrated his fire there.
However, the former Spark Signal members were good.
All ten of them aimed their grenades towards Tsuchimikado and Unabara in unison. The
ten explosives were fired at once and coffee can-like objects flew through the air in an
arc.
“…Jump!!” yelled Tsuchimikado as he broke a window on the side of the corridor and
jumped through into a store.
But Unabara did not follow.
Instead, he reached for a large button on the wall. It activated a security/fire shutter.
When he pressed the button with his palm, a thick metal barrier wall fell down just
before the grenades hit.
It stopped the explosives.
A number of large explosions could be heard on the other side of the wall and the
shutters became warped in his direction. However, the explosions and fragments did not
injure Unabara.
“You dumbass!!” Tsuchimikado yelled at him. “Now we can’t attack them!! Giving them
time only lets them gather more firepower for a counterattack!!”
The two of them moved around the shop with the broken window in an attempt to
circumvent the shutter and return to the battlefield, but that time lag of a few seconds
greatly affected the next turn of events.

65

A new explosion reverberated through the underground area.
It had not been created in an attempt to attack Tsuchimikado, Musujime, or Unabara.
“!!”
Tsuchimikado hurriedly checked on the state of the passageway and saw that a large
hole had been opened in the ceiling on the other side of a cloud of dust. It was in the
exact place the former Spark Signal group had previously been. The fallen rubble had
piled up like a staircase making a perfect route to the surface.
And the former Spark Signal group had completely vanished.
They had clearly escaped.
“Damn it!!” Tsuchimikado swore as he grabbed his cell phone.
He was calling Accelerator who was waiting on the surface.
“They escaped from the underground mall!! There are about ten of them! We’ll be
heading up with Musujime’s Move Point, but you head out to intercept them!! I doubt
they’re still headed there!!”

Part 6

Accelerator could clearly see the explosion even from where he waited.
Something white was floating up into the air, but he wasn’t sure if it was smoke or dust
made up of building material. He took his modern cane and headed in that direction
when he received even more information.
The asphalt had been blown upwards from below.
A large number of fragments had spread around and had smashed car windshields and
restaurant windows to pieces.
A girl was crouched down holding her bleeding head.
He could hear groans and cries from all over the place and the distant sound of an
approaching ambulance’s siren was mixed in with it all.
The former Spark Signal group seemed to have already fled.

66

“(…Damn villains.)”
Accelerator looked at the yelling people and at the onlookers who had gathered as he
ever so slightly gritted his teeth.
“(…So this is the result when a bunch of piece of shit villains gather together.)”
Tsuchimikado and the others were likely in pursuit of the former Spark Signals, but
Accelerator had no intention of just doing what he said. It was upon seeing that scene
that he truly started considering shooting the former Spark Signals.
His fingertips slowly approached the switch to the choker-style electrode around his
neck, but then he heard an especially loud yell.
A lot of people had been caught up in the sudden incident, but that one stood out among
them all. Accelerator looked in that direction without really thinking about it,
approached, and saw a high school-aged boy yelling at a rescue worker. It seemed the
rescue worker was trying to treat a woman the boy knew, but the student was frantically
trying to stop him.
“…?”
The woman looked college-aged or older. The papers that had fallen from her bag looked
school related, so she might have been a teacher. She looked more seriously injured than
the high school boy who had only a single trail of blood on his forehead. She was
slumped over unconscious. Normally, she would need to be treated right away, but…
“Stop!! Stop!! Don’t use that medicine!! You can’t!! It’ll just have the opposite effect!!”
“But if she doesn’t get something to give her some strength, she won’t make it to the
hospital! Do you know what her heart rate is!? I already checked, and she showed no
allergic reaction to this drug. Why are you trying to stop me from treating her!?”
Both the high school boy and the rescue worker were getting worked up.
“…You just can’t,” the boy clinging to the rescue worker’s arm finally said as if he were
squeezing out the words. “She’s…pregnant.”
With that last word, the rescue worker’s expression turned to one of shock. There was no
need to ask for the details regarding that situation.
The high school boy averted his gaze and desperately moved his trembling lips.
“I’ve heard that drugs that normal people have no issue with can have a negative effect
on a fetus. What about that one? Will it really be okay? What if that kills it!?”

67

“W-well…”
It was a delicate situation. The drug had been developed on the assumption that it would
not be used on infants or pregnant women, so no tests had ever been run. Not even a
professional rescue worker like him knew what to do when it actually came down to it.
“I’ll be honest. When I first heard that she was pregnant, I thought my life was over. I
didn’t know what to do. I just wished the problem could disappear… actually, I still feel
that way. I still wonder why things ended up this way.” The high school boy bit his lip.
“We were walking along here on what I suppose could be called a date. It was mostly to
calm me down from the panic I was in. I just couldn’t figure out what to do. But this isn’t
what I wanted. Is it really going to end like this? What do I want to do? Did I want to
leave her? Then why am I clinging to her like this…?”
After saying that much, he fell silent.
Finally, he desperately moved his lips, speaking quietly in a cracking voice.
“I don’t want to lose them…”
As the high school boy trembled, tears welled up in his eyes and he used all his strength
to yell.
“Even if I decided in this direction, this isn’t how I would have wanted it!! I still have no
idea what I want to do, but I can’t let it end like this!! Please, do something!! You’re an
expert at saving people’s lives, right!? So please save both of them!!”
The rescue worker seemed a bit flustered.
However, no matter how much he thought about it, there was only one thing he could do.
One path would likely save neither and the other would certainly save one.
As a professional, he knew which one he had to choose.
“…Let me use this. If I don’t, the mother will die, too!!”
“But…!!”
As they once again reached their stalemate, they both heard the sound of a cane striking
the ground.
It was Accelerator.
“Out of the way.”

68

“Hah…? W-wait a second! Outsiders shouldn’t do anythi—!!”
Accelerator knocked the rescue worker aside without even waiting for him to finish
speaking and moved to the spot the man had previously been in. He leaned over and
reached a hand up to the switch of his choker electrode. He then lightly reached a hand
towards the pregnant woman’s belly.
He had once calculated back from the electrical signals on the surface of the skin in
order to completely rewrite the structure of a small girl’s brain so he could save her.
It was not difficult for him to gather accurate information on the fetus by touching the
pregnant woman’s belly.
(…Gender: Female. Weight: 244 grams. Nutrition Supply Level: 3825. Consciousness
Operation Rate: 3.8. Heart Rate: 60. Stimulus Reaction Rate: 5.52. Cell Division: 88…)
After only a few seconds with his eyes shut, Accelerator returned the electrode’s switch
to normal.
He spoke to the rescue worker who had fallen to the ground.
“Give her the drug. Give her 2.5 grams of ectrin. Put a surface chip over her carotid
artery and inject it inside her over five ten-second periods with twenty-second breaks in
between. That will do it.”
“Wait!!” The one objecting was the high school boy not the rescue worker. “What will
happen to the fetus!?”
“That’s what I was fucking calculating, you piece of shit!!” Accelerator yelled back and
the boy fell silent.
The #1 continued on.
“If you truly don’t want them to die, then do as I say. If you do that, it won’t have any
negative effects on the mother or the fetus. You don’t want them both to die while you
argue, do you?”
Having said what he had to say, Accelerator turned towards the rescue worker without
waiting for the boy to respond.
“If you’re gonna do it, you only have five minutes to decide. You want to save both if you
can, right? Then try my way. You’ll still be using the same drug. Do you really have any
reason not to do it?”

69

The rescue worker shook his head and pulled a chip that looked like a stick of gum out of
his kit. As Accelerator told him, he put the chip on her neck for a short time, pulled it off,
and then continued to repeat the action.
And once he had done it five times like Accelerator had said…
“…Uuh…”
At first, the high school boy did not know who had made that small groan.
When the woman who had been unconscious up until that point opened her eyes, it
truly looked like the boy was going to collapse to the ground.
“…It had no effect on the fetus. Doesn’t look like there was any change to its cell division
rate. Just take her to the hospital like this,” Accelerator said to the rescue worker after
having briefly flipped on the electrode and used his fingertips to check. “But don’t take
her to the District 3 hospital. Take her to District 7 instead. It’s a bit farther away, but
that hospital definitely won’t try to avoid dealing with her. With a delicate patient like
her, not all places you take her will accept her. Taking her somewhere you know will
take her will be quicker overall.”
Accelerator then turned his back on them.
He couldn’t stay there forever. To make sure the same thing didn’t happen again, he had
to take out the fleeing former Spark Signals.
And then…
“Hey!! Wait a second! Hey!!”
It was the high school student. He was yelling after Accelerator who stopped in place but
did not turn around.
The boy desperately spoke to Accelerator’s back.
“Thank you. If you hadn’t done something there, I definitely would have lived the rest of
my life as an empty shell.”
“...Fuck off,” Accelerator muttered, but it seemed the boy hadn’t heard him.
He continued to speak.
“I won’t forget what you did for me. I will never forget that you saved something more
important to me than my own life!! If you ever need something from me, I can try to pay
you back. So…”

70

The boy’s words trailed off.
He did so because of a sharp noise and a dull shock on his cheek.
He wasn’t quite sure what had happened and then he noticed something black and hard
pressed up against his forehead. It was a small handgun. Accelerator had pulled the gun
from his belt, lightly struck the boy on the cheek with the grip, and then stuck the barrel
up against his forehead. It seemed this was going to cause another uproar, but the #1
didn’t seem to care.
He repeated his two words from before.
“Fuck off.”
For a bit, the high school boy was unable to speak and he took a few steps back. Finally,
he bowed deeply in thanks to Accelerator. He then turned his back and ran towards the
ambulance the woman he knew had been loaded onto.
After the ambulance drove off, Accelerator put the handgun back in his belt and slowly
looked around the area.
“…”
He muttered something.
However, what he said did not reach anyone’s ears.
Finally, he reached a slender finger up towards the electrode’s switch.
An explosive noise rang out.
The injured and the onlookers at the scene did not see Accelerator after that.
All that was left was a new large crack running across the asphalt that seemed to
indicate the fury of a monster.

Part 7

Hamazura Shiage was driving the (stolen) family car from District 7 to District 3. He was
on an overhead bypass road. He was supposed to be chasing after the terrorists to help
out Kinuhata, but…
“Hey, what the fuck!? What the hell is that chasing us!?”

71

With a look of shock, Hamazura checked the rearview mirror and then turned his head
around to get a better look.
His reaction wasn’t too surprising.
“That’s an HsAFH-11 Six Wings. …It’s an unmanned attack helicopter,” said Kinuhata
with a look of light irritation one would usually associate with getting caught in traffic.
The military helicopter reminded Hamazura of an Apache and it looked like it had a
wing with missiles on it sticking out on the left and right. But that wasn’t quite accurate.
The wings split into three each forming six wings that moved around like the joints in a
human arm as they aimed.
All six wings were aimed at the family car Hamazura was driving.
As Hamazura looked in the mirror at the helicopter that was flying at low altitude and
matching their speed, he gave a loud gulp.
“Fuck this!! All I did was steal a car to help you out! Does that usually turn out this
badly!?”
“Does that look like an Anti-Skill toy, Hamazura!? It super isn’t!!”
“Then what is it? Is this a counterattack by the terrorists you’re after? Do the terrorists
have weapons like this!?”
“No, the Six Wings is an unmanned weapon belonging to Academy City’s air defense
unit. They super wouldn’t send this out for just a criminal!”
“So this is Academy City doing this!? And high up in the city at that!? I can only think of
one reason why this is happening and that’s the fact that you ignored the order you got
on the phone!!”
“…Hmm. I think you might be jumping to a hasty conclusion.”
“Why are you so relaxed!? Do you understand the situation here!? Do you know how fast
a military helicopter can fly!?”
“Hm? That’s a super HsAFH-11, so its maximum speed is around 3,000 kph.”
“Mach 2.5!? Is that thing really a helicopter!?”
“It super can’t use its rocket engines when its wings are spread out like that because the
wind pressure would super damage its joints. Right now, it can only go about 300-400
kph.”

72

“Either way, we’re kinda fucked with only this family car!!”
The Six Wings had perfectly matched its movements to those of the family car, so it
looked frozen in place in the mirror. …Hamazura didn’t know the details, but it seemed
to have locked onto them.
“What do we do!? If that thing shoots a missile, it’s all over!!”
“We just need to pray it uses a short range anti-armored vehicle missile,” was the
ridiculous-sounding thing Kinuhata said as she bent over as if she were tying her shoes.
“I don’t see how that makes much of a difference!!”
“It does,” said Kinuhata as she straightened back up. “It seems the Six Wings super uses
an SRM21 for a short range anti-armored vehicle missile. It super uses an infrared
sensor to get a lock.”
“And!? Whether it uses a very high frequency radar, infrared rays, or ultraviolet rays, we
still can’t get away from it!! Do you know how fast a missile moves!?”
“Here, super breathe in some of this smokescreen and calm down.”
“Cough cough!? A-a smoke grenade!! Don’t activate that thing in the car!!”
“Are you sure? Using it this way can be super useful,” Kinuhata said nonchalantly as she
threw the smoke grenade out the passenger side window.
Immediately afterwards, a comparatively short missile was fired from one of the Six
Wings’ arm-like wings.
Hamazura thought his heart was going to stop, but the missile did not strike the family
car’s exhaust pipe blowing the car away.
They avoided that fate due to the smoke grenade.
The dummy heat source had made the short-range missile to veer off course.
“That’s super what you call a flare,” Kinuhata said smoothly, but the threat was not over.
With a loud boom, the missile exploded on the road surface where the smoke grenade
had landed. They had avoided a direct hit, but the intense explosive wind created
assaulted the family car. The car’s windows shattered and the car itself trembled
unnaturally. Hamazura desperately tried to bring the car’s spin under control.

73

Meanwhile, the Six Wings continued to follow the family car as the wind from its rotor
blew away the smoke caused by the explosion.
Even though Hamazura could just floor it because there were almost no other cars on
the road, the family car just didn’t have enough speed to outrun the attack helicopter.
“What do we do? I’m pretty sure you only had one smoke grenade and it’ll probably
decide to switch over to its machine gun meaning we can’t use any kind of flare defense
again.”
“Hamazura, turn super left at the next branch in the road.”
“Hah? Eh? What are you saying? I can’t hear you over the wind.”
“Fnhh!!”
Kinuhata said nothing more and instead suddenly grabbed the hand brake from the
passenger seat.
The family car suddenly decelerated and slid to the side as if it were drifting.
Having suddenly started to move diagonally, the car shot into the left branch of the road.
“Waaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!?”
Hamazura frantically put the hand brake back to normal and turned the wheel. Hitting
the brake would definitely have put them in a spin, so he just used the steering wheel to
bring the car back from the vector it was drifting in without decelerating.
“What the hell was that for!?”
“I super want us to survive this. Hamazura, head straight through this main road. It’s a
super large road with three lanes on either side, but just head super straight without
even changing lanes if you can help it.”
“Have I gotten involved in something dangerous again without realizing it?”
“Isn’t that super normal for you? Anyway, just head super straight.”
“Is this really okay? I know it won’t actually save us, but wouldn’t it be better to zigzag
back and forth to throw off its aim?”
As he complained, Hamazura drove the family car as instructed. He looked around while
stepping on the gas. The area had a lot of skyscrapers, so the Six Wings chasing after
them would naturally head in a straight line. It looked like the helicopter would hit a
wall if it tried to move around much.

74

And on top of that, there were occasional signs on the sides of buildings and other
overhead roads crossing above theirs. This meant that the Six Wings would have to
lower its altitude while chasing the family car. It was now flying just a bit off the ground
almost at the car’s level.
“Hey, Kinuhata, is this…Bfh!?”
Hamazura looked over towards the passenger seat and then did what would have been a
spit take had he been drinking something.
Kinuhata Saiai was leaning forward out the passenger side window. In fact, everything
but her legs was sticking out the window. Her slender legs were wrapped around the
seat to hold herself in place as she pointed a handgun back behind the car.
However, the fast-moving car was naturally creating quite a bit of wind.
“W-wow!! Wow!! Those panties!! Kinuhata, this goes well beyond the level of just a
panty shot!! Your panties!! What are you going to do about your panties!?”
Kinuhata then shot a bullet through the car into the driver side door.
“…Do super nothing other than looking forward and focusing on driving!”
“Yes!! But your panties!!”
Kinuhata ignored Hamazura who was getting all worked up over something weird and
went back to aiming the handgun behind the family car. As if in response, the barrel of
the Six Wings’ machine gun started to move.
“Kinuhata, this is impossible!! Maybe if you had some kind of antiaircraft gun, but a tiny
little 9mm isn’t going to get through a military helicopter’s armor!!”
“…The bullets I’m super using are made to be destroyed easily. They’re made of
something like papier-mâché so they will super smash to pieces. They’re meant to be
used in small areas where a ricocheting bullet could super hurt an ally.”
“Then that’s even worse for attacking armor!!”
“Who said I was shooting at its armor?” Kinuhata muttered out of annoyance. “I’m
super shooting at the engine’s air intake.”
Multiple gun shots rang out. The bullets seemed to be almost sucked into the small hole
below the helicopter rotor.

75

Just like a car, a helicopter had its fuel react with the air to create energy, so they needed
a hole to suck in air. If a foreign object was brought in there, the engine would stall
causing the helicopter to crash.
However, a few countermeasures were used in normal air intakes to prevent that kind of
trouble. The downward wind created by the rotor prevented dust and sand from getting
in and a wire mesh was usually put over it to prevent foreign materials from getting in.
Something as big as a 9mm bullet would not be sucked in.
But Kinuhata Saiai had used bullets made of a papier-mâché-like material so they would
break to pieces as soon as it hit its target instead of ricocheting.
Yes, it broke to pieces just like dried papier-mâché being broken.
The created particles were even finer than normal dust, so the extremely narrow
openings in the wire mesh over the air intake were large enough for them to get through.
And once the foreign substance was within the engine, the engine burnt out and failed to
work properly. The Six Wings lost a good bit of its lift.
With an explosive noise, black smoke started to rise from the helicopter’s engine.
Just as the Six Wings started to veer slightly from the road, it started scraping across the
asphalt.
That helicopter was loaded with fuel for the rotor, special fuel for the rocket engine,
missiles, and ammunition for its machine guns as it crashed.
“Yes!! I super got him!!”
Kinuhata almost seemed to slither back into the passenger seat like a snake, but
Hamazura had more important things to focus on.
A giant shockwave struck the family car that made the previous one from the short-
range missile seem like nothing. He lost control of the steering wheel almost instantly
and the car finally entered a true spin.
“Damn it!! Kinuhata! Use your Offense Armor!! If you can stop a shot from a sniper rifle,
you can do something about this, right!?”
“Wait, Hamazura—!!” Kinuhata said as if protesting something, but he didn’t have time
to listen.
The family car struck the side wall of the road.

76



“Kh…”
Hamazura’s consciousness cut out and he eventually came to and sat up. His body had
been thrown out of the car, but it seemed he had escaped any difficulties by hitting a
balloon made of synthetic fiber that was filled with a large amount of water. They were
lined up on the side of the road to soften the blow of any accidents.
(Where’s Kinuhata…?)
Hamazura looked around and towards the crashed family car, but he didn’t see her. He
actually didn’t know how long he had been unconscious, so he assumed she had come to
before him. Perhaps she had been unable to find him and had gone off to take care of the
terrorists on her own.
(Things can never be easy, can they?)
He stood up and checked his arms and legs, but none of them seemed to be broken.
From a sign he could see, it seemed they had entered District 3 while being chased by
the helicopter.
He started wondering whether he should find Kinuhata and continue helping her or go
meet up with Takitsubo, but it became a moot point.
His cell phone started to ring.
It was a suspicious call that withheld its number, but Hamazura had a general idea what
kind of person was calling at a time like that.
“Hello, it’s been a while. If I told you I was Measure Heart, would that be enough for you
to at least remember what I look like?”
“…Why do you know my number?”
“Do you want me to explain every little thing? That would be a real pain, so I won’t.
More importantly, I have a question for you: Is Kinuhata Saiai with you? I’ve been trying
to call her, but I can’t get a hold of her.”
“…”
Hamazura Shiage looked over at the crashed Six Wings.
“So that was yours.”
“?”

78

He heard an odd breath rather than words.
She seemed to be surprised about something.
“I’m not sure what you’re talking about, but I’ll tell you something if you’re in contact
with Kinuhata. If she’s going to do this on her own, we’ll leave her alone, but the former
Spark Signal terrorists have taken over a private salon in District 3. Of course, if she’s
going to give up, we would be glad to take care of it.”
“A private salon…in District 3…?” Hamazura muttered in what was almost a moan.
Wasn’t that where Takitsubo Rikou was waiting for them having just left the hospital?

Part 8

Hamazura Shiage ran through District 3 at night.
He repeatedly prayed that it wasn’t true, but the situation was quite severe.
Anti-Skill was surrounding the skyscraper Takitsubo was supposed to be in, so he
couldn’t even get inside. The yellow tape marking off the area hit Hamazura’s heart as a
danger signal.
He heard a loud, dry noise coming from the upper levels of the building that sounded
like a gunshot.
After he heard that, Hamazura Shiage took a deep breath and made up his mind.
The terrorists had taken over the private salon building.
Takitsubo Rikou most likely could not escape.
In that case, what he had to do was clear.
“God damn it…” Hamazura muttered because he didn’t really want to have anything to
do with the incident.
He then started repeating the same curse growing louder and louder.
“God damn it! God damn it!! God damn it!!!!! Why? Why here of all places!? There are
tons of other buildings! Why the hell did they have to choose this one!?”

79

As he yelled, he turned his back on the private salon. He looked around and spotted an
unnaturally placed garbage truck. He unhesitatingly approached it, forced open the
passenger side door, and climbed in.
The driver was shocked.
“Waahh!? What the-..!? Are you trying to rob me!?”
“Let’s cut the crap. You’re a subordinate in the underworld like me, right?” Hamazura
asked in a low voice as he stuck one hand in his pocket.
The garbage man in a work uniform’s face stiffened and Hamazura continued on.
“I’m sure you can tell from my face that I’m making some preparations for helping out
my boss. …Hand over your backup gun. Of course, I could always just kill you and take
it.”
Rationally speaking, someone with a weapon wouldn’t demand a weapon from someone
else, but the garbage man hadn’t realized that. He pulled out a cheap-looking bag and
handed a small handgun and a few extra magazines that were inside to Hamazura.
“Wh-where exactly are you assigned? If you need a weapon, can’t you just go through
the proper procedure…?”
The man assumed wrong, but Hamazura just averted his gaze.
What was he doing?
Hamazura Shiage was just a Level 0. He didn’t have any kind of special power at his
disposal to defeat an incoming enemy like Kinuhata Saiai had. He was weak enough that
he could easily be killed in a street fight with delinquents if he wasn’t careful.
“I’m not assigned anywhere. I’ve already retired,” he muttered after thinking for a bit.
Despite being weak, Hamazura knew that the world was not a kind place. A delinquent
leader like Komaba Ritoku had been killed so easily. He didn’t want to think about it,
but Takitsubo Rikou was most likely the same. That was why Hamazura took that
weapon. It had nothing to do with whether he was a Level 0 or not.
“…But someone I know seems to be trapped in that building, so I have to go.”
Having said what he had to say, Hamazura got out of the garbage truck.
He had a gun now, but he still couldn’t just charge into the private salon building. He
would clearly be captured by Anti-Skill if he tried.

80

(…They’ve got it covered all the way around with no blind spots. Anti-Skill isn’t stupid
enough to leave a route for the criminals to escape. But that also means they haven’t left
a route for me to get in through.)
Hamazura then looked up into the starry sky.
(…If I can’t get in on the ground, I’ll have to go through the sky.)
Hamazura Shiage had been attacked by a helicopter just a few minutes prior.
He looked around and then entered a large hotel that was nearby. He used the elevator
to get to the roof and, just as he had expected, he found a heliport there. A small
helicopter with a round egg-shaped body was stopped there. It was most likely waiting
for a guest that wanted to enjoy the nighttime scenery.
Hamazura headed straight for the helicopter and opened the door.
Hamazura spoke as he pointed his handgun at the female pilot who was running
through a systems check.
“Sorry, but I’m gonna need you to take me to the private salon three roads down.”
The female pilot who had the barrel of a gun pointed at her head remained silent for a
few seconds.
Finally, she spoke without removing her headset.
“…Unfortunately, even someone like me used to belong to the agency that administers
Academy City’s air defense.”
As she whispered, Hamazura frowned and then realized something.
At some point, she had gotten a utility knife into her hand.
“Did you think a pilot wouldn’t know how to use a weapon? Since we might crash in
enemy territory and be forced to act on our own, we have things much harsher than an
army soldier who acts in a large group with plenty of weaponry.”
(…Wait a second. When did she bring that out?)
When he had gotten into the cockpit, both of her hands had been busy checking over the
displays. At some point she had taken out that knife that had been hidden somewhere.
He knew that much, but he couldn’t fully understand what had happened.
She was too dangerous to take his eyes off of.

81

He may have a handgun, but he was still the one with a chill running down his back.
That was when the cell phone in Hamazura Shiage’s pocket suddenly started to ring. He
frowned at the timing. In contrast, the female pilot continued to sit in her seat while a
thin smile appeared on her face.
“…Don’t you need to answer that? We haven’t taken off yet, so you’re free to do so,” she
said in a provoking manner.
“…”
Without moving his head, Hamazura used the hand not holding the gun to slowly grab
the cell phone from his pocket. He did this so carefully that it took him thirty seconds.
The instant he looked down to check the screen was the most terrifying, but he
immediately hit the connect button and put the phone to his ear upon seeing the
displayed name.
“…Hama…zura…”
“Takitsubo, are you okay!? Where are you!?”
“…At the meeting point. The private salon…”
Hamazura looked slightly relieved to hear that lovely voice, but the relief disappeared
replaced by burning doubt.
(Wait a second. Why does her voice sound so weak?)
“I heard what happened. Terrorists have entered the private salon. Are you okay? You
weren’t hit by a stray bullet, were you!?”
“I’m…fine…”
At the very end of her sentence, he heard a gunshot over the phone. He then heard what
sounded like rushed footsteps.
“Takitsubo!!”
“I’m fine…really… I’m hiding right now… They haven’t noticed me yet.”
He heard a small noise over the phone.
It was the sound of someone leaning up against a wall.
“Wait. Then why do you sound so exhausted!?”

82

“I’m just…not feeling too good. It’s nothing you need to worry about, Hamazura…”
“Dammit!!” he swore.
Takitsubo Rikou had only just been released from the hospital. She may have been fine
with a normal life, but that kind of heavy activity and intense mental strain would put a
toll on her body. And her health had originally taken a turn for the worse because of
some rare and not fully understood material called Body Crystal. No one knew just how
much damage had actually accumulated within her.
“Hamazura…”
“Okay, don’t worry. I’m telling you that it’ll be fine. I’ll be there right away. I’ll definitely
be there to rescue you. So just bear with it a little longer. Can you do that?”
“No, not that.”
Hamazura had been frantically moving his lips, but Takitsubo’s reaction was the exact
opposite.
“Don’t come, Hamazura. Don’t come here. There are ten terrorists. They all seem to be
armed with submachine guns and grenade launchers. Hamazura, you may know how to
use a handgun, but you don’t know how to use a rifle, do you? If you come in here, they
will just concentrate their fire on you. You can’t do anything about it, Hamazura. So
don’t come.”
“…Fuck that…” Hamazura muttered as he trembled.
This trembling was different from before. It was due to anger instead of fear.
“I’m going. Of course I’m going!! I can’t just leave you there! No matter what it takes, I
will rescue you from there. So wait for me. Don’t give up!! Whether I’m out of my league
here or not, I’m going!!”
Takitsubo did not respond.
Perhaps because the cell phone relay antenna within the private salon had been
destroyed, the call ended. Hamazura stared at the disconnected cell phone for a bit and
his trembling reached its maximum. A shout exploded from the bottom of his throat.
The female pilot sitting in the cockpit looked at him and her eyebrows moved slightly.
The pilot was still playing with the knife in her hand that she could attack with at any
time while Hamazura continued to point the hand gun towards her with trembling
hands.

83

“Please…” he said to her with tears and snot running down his face. “You can charge me
with whatever crime you want. I won’t complain if you send me down to the very depths
of hell. But please help me save her…”
Those words that sounded as if he were just barely squeezing them out resounded
within the helicopter.
After a few seconds of silence, the female pilot finally sighed. She then spoke in a voice
that could barely be heard.
“…Why didn’t you say that sooner?”
“?”
Hamazura hadn’t been able to quite hear her and he looked on questioningly, but then a
loud roar pierced his ears. It was the sound of the helicopter’s rotor quickly raising its
rotation speed. He looked up in the direction of the noise and realized the feeling at his
feet had disappeared. The craft was hovering.
The female pilot threw the utility knife aside and grabbed a half-empty can of coffee. She
hit a few buttons on a number pad and a small door-like object near the joystick opened
up. She then poured the coffee inside.
(…The flight recorder…?)
It was the device that recorded what happened within the craft so that the reason for a
crash could be investigated. Pouring coffee inside the armor that protected it from fire,
water, and shocks would erase the conversations that had taken place inside the
helicopter. That included the one that had recorded who Hamazura and Takitsubo were.
The female pilot raised the helicopters altitude as she spoke into her headset’s mic
without looking at Hamazura.
“Flight H3389 is being hijacked. Repeat, Flight H3389 is being hijacked!! The hijacker
has a handgun and a small drum with liquid inside. It probably holds eight to ten liters!
If what he says is true, the drum contains a liquid explosive and he is threatening to
scatter the contents along with an ignition device down from midair if his instructions
are not followed. I am giving priority to the lives of the people in the area, so I am
following his orders for now!!”
The panicked male voice of an air-traffic controller responded over her headset. In
response to that, the pilot started speaking some sort of code.
“T-A, T-A. Code black. Flying in direction 202 and altitude 80, give me authorization! B-
A-L, at intervals of 35 to 40. Large. I’m going, understood!?”

84

At first, Hamazura had thought that had simply been aviation radio jargon, but when he
thought through it again, he realized it didn’t actually mean anything. She had been
listing off the characteristics of the hijacker. She had most likely been saying the hijacker
was aged between 35 to 40, was 202 centimeters tall, weighed around 80 kilograms, and
had black skin.
Of course, none of those characteristics matched Hamazura.
The pilot spoke to him once she had completely cut off the transmission.
“…Flying on some kid’s whim isn’t so easy. Sorry, but I had to make that pretty showy.”
“You…”
Hamazura wasn’t quite sure what to say as the helicopter continued on. The private
salon building was only three roads away from the hotel. They would be there in no time.
The building was just as luxurious as the hotel had been.
He could see a few figures on the lit-up heliport. They were not customers wanting to be
rescued. They had submachine guns in their hands.
Tension grabbed at Hamazura’s heart, but they did not shoot at the helicopter flying
above them.
Hamazura looked confused.
“What’s going on?”
“…I don’t know who they’ve contacted, but I bet one of their demands was to be given a
means of escape. They may have mistaken our helicopter for the one they requested.”
The female pilot circled around the private salon building.
“But that doesn’t change the fact that they’re on their guard. We can’t exactly land at the
heliport if you don’t want this helicopter to be taken by the terrorists.”
“I know, and I don’t intend to cause that much trouble for you.” Hamazura looked down
at the heliport below and pointed at a certain spot. “What’s that?”
“…An imitation tree. To put it simply, a number of layers of white cloth like a yacht’s sail
are formed into the shape of a tree and various colors of lights are put on as decorations.
If a normal tree were there, the branches broken off by the wind would create issues
when landing or taking off.”

85

“I see.”
Hamazura thought for a bit.
Then he unhesitatingly opened the helicopter’s door.
“Thanks for the info.”
“!?”
That caught even the female pilot by surprise.
Hamazura Shiage then jumped out into the night sky.
They were around twenty meters above the heliport. Gravity slammed Hamazura into
the tree made of cloth. The yacht sail-like decoration snapped, but it absorbed enough of
the shock for Hamazura to avoid receiving a fatal injury when he landed on the heliport.
At first, the three terrorists armed with submachine guns and grenade launchers merely
stared on in shock. After all, some strange guy had jumped down out of the helicopter
they thought had come in accordance with their demands.
And Hamazura did not wait for them to retain their composure.
He mercilessly pointed his handgun forward and repeatedly pulled the trigger.
Multiple gunshots rang out and the terrorists were taken out before they could manage
to fire back.
Hamazura waved once at the helicopter circling around above signaling for it to leave
the area. Then he moved his gaze to the door leading inside the building.
His lips moved slightly.
“…I’ve come here to the depths of hell, partner.”
Most likely, Hamazura Shiage himself had not noticed.
It was true that he was a good-for-nothing third-rate thug. There was no twist ending
coming where it turned out he actually possessed some special power or talent. He was
exactly what he looked like: a pathetic Level 0.
However, when he put his life on the line to protect a certain girl, he became a true
protagonist.

86

Part 9

The former Spark Signal terrorists who had control of the private salon building raised
their heads.
They had heard gunshots.
And the gunshots sounded different from the guns they carried. The caliber was
probably the same, but the powder being used was different.
“A group went up to the roof to see if the helicopter we had requested had come, but…”
“When is Stephanie going to meet up with us? Depending on what she does...”
“Maybe we should take an attack from an esper with teleportation powers into account.”
However, they were not so simple as to all head straight for the source of the noise. They
had mostly suppressed the people within the building, but there was a bare minimum of
people they needed to seal their movements.
There was also the risk that the gunshots themselves were a trap and they would trigger
some explosives upon heading that way.
The seven former Spark Signals immediately thought through all that and split into
three teams.
They had made the decision and reacted very quickly.
However, a “disaster” ignored that and suddenly attacked regardless.
That “disaster” came in through the window.
An explosion that sounded like the main gun of a battleship resounded throughout the
room and the window through which a piece of the night scenery could be seen
shattered. However, it was not a mass of firepower that flew inside.
It was a person.
The person had white hair, red eyes, and a smile that looked like a rip in his face.
He was Accelerator, Academy City’s strongest Level 5.
(…Th-this is the 28th floor…!?)

87

In the face of such an unusual phenomenon, one of the former Spark Signals had that
commonplace thought. Yet even that small lag was fatal before Accelerator.
The action the Level 5 took was simple.
He grabbed the closest former Spark Signal terrorist with one hand and threw him at
the others. The action was much like one a child in a temper tantrum would take, but
when the ability to alter all kinds of vectors was added in, it possessed the destructive
power of an explosive shell.
With an explosive noise, three former Spark Signals were blown away.
Without even waiting to hear the sound of ripping flesh and snapping bones, Accelerator
turned his red eyes to his next target.
The remaining former Spark Signal terrorists finally jumped behind cover and started
firing their submachine guns.
But gunshots began to resound from an unexpected place.
“…”
The gunshots had come from that floor’s exit. The terrorists had been so distracted by
Accelerator that they had been unable to react. They collapsed to the ground spreading
their blood across the floor. Each target had been accurately hit by a single bullet either
in the head or the center of the abdomen. They had clearly died instantly. It had been so
sudden that not a single one gave out a death scream.
Accelerator turned in the direction of the gunshots.
An unfamiliar man wearing a suit stood there. He looked to be around thirty. As his
handgun had smoke rising from it, it was clear he had been the one to shoot the former
Spark Signal group.
“Who are you?”
“Does it really matter?” the man in the suit said.
The man then aimed his handgun to the side towards the terrorists Accelerator had
knocked away with his vector power. He carefully shot each of them either in the head or
the abdomen. The gunshots were louder than one would expect for the size of the
handgun. Most likely, it was not a standard 9mm. It used bullets of a higher caliber.
The man in the suit spoke to Accelerator as he swapped out magazines.

88

“If you truly want to protect this city, you must be this thorough.”
“I asked who the hell you are. Do you want to die here?”
“I am Sugitani,” the man said in an offhand manner without his expression changing.
He kicked each body over to see if they reacted in any way.
“Pray that we do not meet again. You need to work towards that end.”
Saying only that, the man in the suit put away his handgun and headed for the floor’s
exit. Accelerator glared at his disappearing back and finally switched his electrode back
to normal mode. Whatever the details were, the danger had left the private salon at least
temporarily.
Accelerator pulled out his cell phone.
It pissed him off to ask for help from the people who had fucked things up, but it would
be a pain to deal with it all himself.
“…Hey, Tsuchimikado. I took out the bastards you let escape to the private salon
building. Get up here already and deal with the injured and check for traps. If you can’t
even do that, I really will put a bullet in your head.”
He put away his phone and walked out along the floor.
He opened a door and saw a large party area inside. Civilians that appeared to have been
hostages were gathered in it. His initial glance told him there were more than three
hundred of them in there. Eerie sobs leaked out from various directions, but it didn’t
feel like the atmosphere of a group in which there had been fatalities.
He then heard a clattering noise from a different direction.
Accelerator had been about to enter the large area, but he stopped. He walked down the
hall with his modern cane and saw something roll out from behind a pillar.
It was a high school-aged girl wearing a pink track suit.
All strength seemed to have left her body and she was sweating profusely. Accelerator
was reminded of Last Order when her personality had been desecrated by a virus.
The girl in the track suit’s consciousness seemed dim, and she slowly opened and closed
her eyes. Even when she saw Accelerator approaching, she did not attempt to stand up.
Accelerator knelt down to check on her condition and his eyebrows shot up slightly.

89

(…She has no obvious injury. It doesn’t look like she was shot. Is she sick or something?
Don’t tell me she’s pregnant, too.)
Accelerator decided he should at least bring her to the hospital, so he pulled out his cell
phone.
And then…
“…What the hell did you do?” said a low male voice.
Accelerator immediately looked over and saw a boy walking from further down the
hallway.
He, Hamazura Shiage, was glaring at the limp, unmoving girl in the track suit and
Accelerator while he forced out some words.
“I asked you what the hell you did to Takitsubo!”

Part 10

Hamazura had lost his cool.
When he had snuck into the private salon building from the roof, he hadn’t been stupid
enough to take the elevator. He had headed down floor by floor via the emergency stairs,
but even that was pretty much a straight shot. If he ran across the terrorists, he would
not be able to avoid a firefight in which he would have the disadvantage.
Hamazura had been continuing down while extremely nervous and then he had heard
numerous gunshots upon arriving at a certain floor. He then ran down to the 28th floor
and that was where he had witnessed it.
Academy City’s strongest Level 5, Accelerator, was crouched down next to the
unconscious form of Takitsubo Rikou looking like he was about to do something to her.
It was possible that a third party may have interpreted Accelerator’s actions as an
attempt to help her.
However, Hamazura was unable to see it that way.
The reason was quite simple.

90

Hamazura Shiage had once belonged to a delinquent group called Skill-Out. At that time,
the group’s leader had been Komaba Ritoku, but the higher ups of Academy City had
determined that Skill-Out was disadvantageous to the city.
That decision had led to Accelerator being dispatched.
Skill-Out’s leader, Komaba Ritoku, had been killed and the group had temporarily been
driven to the edge of destruction.
“…So this was your doing, too?”
That person, that dog of Academy City, had appeared before Hamazura again and was
trying to do something to Takitsubo Rikou.
“Were you the leader and sole survivor of those terrorists? Or did you kill your other
comrades yourself? Either way, you’re doing dirty jobs secretly in the darkness.”
As Hamazura had just previously been attacked by one of Academy City’s Six Wings, he
naturally came to that conclusion.
“When Skill-Out was destroyed, things weren’t exactly going well for us. Leader Komaba
made up his mind and challenged you to a final battle, so I won’t say anything about that.
I want to say something so badly, but I won’t for his sake.”
Most likely, a third party would have been unable to understand his words.
But Hamazura wasn’t saying them because he wanted to be understood.
His mouth was merely moving on its own.
“But if you’re going to try to take something else I care about away from me… If you’re
going to take Takitsubo’s life, the life of someone who hasn’t made up her mind to fight
and who is supposed to live a normal life from now on…”
He was shaking.
Paying no heed to the tiny distinction between Level 0 and Level 5, Hamazura Shiage
aimed his handgun at Accelerator in order to protect that girl who couldn’t move.
“Prepare yourself, strongeeeeeeeeeessssssssssssstttttttttttt!!”
Meanwhile, Accelerator more or less understood the situation.
He knew Hamazura was mistaken about what was going on, but he made no attempt to
correct him.

91